May 14th, 2026
St. James Cathedral
Remarks as prepared for delivery
It’s a privilege to be offering this funeral Mass for my good friend, Joel — a man for whom I had a lot of love and the deepest respect. Joel was the kind of friend anyone would be proud to have — a down-to-earth, no-nonsense, ‘tell-it-like-it-is’ friend, full of wit and wisdom and a rare brand of humor that was both winsome and uniquely his own.
I liked a lot of things about Joel, but in this day of “fake facts” and truth that purports to be “social,” what I liked most about him is that you always got the truth from him: the unvarnished truth, sometimes the uncomfortable truth.
There were no shifting sands with Joel – only solid ground. And you always knew where you stood with him, and if you stood in the right place (or maybe I should say “the left place!”), you couldn’t go wrong!
Before I say anything more, I want to extend my deepest condolences to all of you in Joel’s immediate family: Melissa, Aaron, Bellamy. Joel may not have been your father in the strict sense of the word but in so many ways he filled that role and filled it well. You know how important you were to him and how much he loved you. Your loss is great. My heart goes out to you.
And the same goes for so many of you who were Joel’s friends, colleagues, and associates – from the inner circle to the outer reaches, and everyone in-between. Our friend was one-of-a-kind and we knew it. As I remarked to his family: “We shall not see his like again.”
I think we can all agree that Joel was one of those people who should have lived forever. Of course, he would have been happy if he could simply have lived till Inauguration Day of 2029! God, however, had other plans – God, whose ways are not our ways. Personally, I’m thinking that Joel can do more good for our country and our world from his new place in heaven than he could ever do here on earth. I’m counting on it.
(Joel, you never let us down. I am confident you won’t let us down now!)
In his seventy-eight years, Joel touched a whole lot of lives as he lived his vocation and practiced his singular craft. Nothing escaped his laser-like focus, his keen — sometimes playful, frequently feisty –- political analysis; and nothing ever escaped that absolutely steel-trap memory of his. I never saw anything like it. Events of long ago were as much in the forefront of his finely-honed mind as something that happened only moments ago. Long before there was Google Search or AI, there was Joel Connelly!
Later in the service, Joel’s friend, Tim Egan, will offer a eulogy for him. In light of that, I don’t think that Joel would have me going on and on about him. Words may have been his thing, but he doesn’t really need a lot of words from me. His colleagues in the media world have nicely captured his brilliance as a journalist. My task, as Joel – who sat through many a Catholic funeral service knew very well – is simply to comment on the scripture readings we just heard, readings I chose because I found Joel in them.
The reading from the Old Testament Book of Daniel, brief and to the point, spoke in apocalyptic language about the end times. The language was on the frightening side: unsettling, disturbing. Language Joel could relate to. It spoke of a time “unsurpassed in distress” in all of human history. Balancing the distress was the great archangel Michael, guardian of God’s faithful ones, leading them to safety. The reading spoke, too, of resurrection and of the vindication of the just. And prominent among the just are wise people who use their God-given gifts to teach others, to instruct them in the ways of truth and justice.
Daniel says that those wise people will “shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament.”
I like that. It speaks to me of Joel who, like his namesake, the Old Testament prophet Joel — spent his entire professional career awakening people to truth, calling for justice, and hanging out to dry anyone who oppressed the poor or ravaged his beloved wilderness, God’s magnificent creation. In so many ways, Joel Connelly was the conscience of this community. Journalism was in his bones. He had a passion for it – for journalism that got to the heart of things – investigative journalism, audacious journalism, unrelenting journalism, independent journalism.
Joel never really needed an editor because he outsmarted them all.
One of his media colleagues put it this way: “Like every good journalist, Joel took seriously his vocation of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. He was particularly gifted at the latter!”
All of this to say that Joel spent his energies (and they were considerable!) like the wise person of the prophet Daniel’s vision – spent them “instructing the many to justice.”
So, my friends, I can only believe that, in the words of the prophet, Joel, who spent his days bringing to light so much that was dark, now “shines brightly like the splendor of the firmament.”
The next time you go outside on a clear, starlit night — not so easy to find in Seattle these days — but the next time you do, look up and scan the heavens and I’m quite sure you’ll see a brand new star up there “shining brightly like the splendor of the firmament!”
The Gospel story of the paralyzed man whose friends lowered him through the roof of a house in order to get him close to Jesus might have seemed a strange choice for a funeral.
Let me tell you what prompted me to choose it. It has to do with you, his friends. Late last fall, Joel emailed me to bring me up-to-date on his health situation: “I’m grateful for your prayers and visits,” he said. “I’ve been dealing with an infection that brought on a period of near despair. I was sustained by faith and rescued by my network of family and friends.”
Faith, family, and friends. That was Joel’s story and it’s what that gospel story was all about. The paralyzed man had faith that Jesus could heal him but he had no way of getting to Jesus by himself; it took friends to get him there. And when they arrived at the house where Jesus was staying they found it overflowing with people. But friends aren’t easily discouraged. They demonstrated what kind of friends they were by climbing onto the roof, yanking off some tiles, and then lowering their friend right down to where Jesus was. Quite a scene that must have been (it brings to mind the colorful chaos of Joel’s annual Christmas party!)
Had it not been for those persistent, resourceful friends who wouldn’t take no for an answer, the healing would never have happened.
That’s Joel’s story, too.
When he found himself weak and wheelchair bound, friends came to the rescue, proving that friends, family, and faith are the path to healing.
Joel was a man of deep faith, but as you can imagine that faith was not unexamined. Back in the late 1960s, he had a serious crisis of conscience around the Church’s teaching on artificial birth control – so much so that – how can I best say it? – he chose to re-affiliate. The community of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral received him warmly and he found a home there for some years.
But there must be some truth to the saying that “once a Catholic, always a Catholic,” (and that may be especially true for a former altar boy and Notre Dame grad!). How else to explain the phone call I got from Joel twenty-five or more years ago. “What will it take for me to come back?” he asked. To which I replied, “I think you just did.”
In the reading from Second Corinthians, we heard St. Paul say, “We believe and therefore we speak.” That was Joel. He was a believer and his strong convictions came from his faith. And like St. Paul, when it came to speaking, he was fearless. He may not have been a preacher, but a bully pulpit he surely had, and he used it… used it persistently to champion the cause of social justice, and to put environmental activism front and center.
The reading went on to say, “We are not discouraged… although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self if being renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” Joel knew only too well what it meant for his ‘outer self’ to be wasting away. The ravages of diabetes, steadily reduced mobility, recurring infections, confinement to a wheelchair, and trip after trip to Virginia Mason took their toll on him.
In light of that, I very much doubt that Joel thought of his afflictions as either ‘momentary’ or ‘light,’ but good Irishman that he was, he fought on, fought the good fight, fought fiercely, found hope from his friends, and let God do the rest. And now, that “eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” of which St. Paul wrote is his. For good. Forever. However you look at it, this is cause for rejoicing!
In one of the last emails he ever sent me, Joel wrote: “The family/friendship network and receiving the Eucharist has underscored the gospel message of Jesus: I am with you. A wonderful serenity has come over me. Suffice it to say, I not only believe but actually feel my faith.”
Powerful words! Not all of us have moments in life when we awaken to faith and actually ‘feel’ our faith.
But Joel, after a lifetime of searching and questioning, had that kind of faith. I’m reminded of what Archbishop Hunthausen would say whenever he learned that someone had died: ”Oh, my friend has all the answers now,” he would say. Indeed!
Enough from me. I intimated earlier that Joel really wanted to outlive the current President. Well, in a way, we can say Joel got his wish, because he’s going to live forever. With God. And you can’t do any better than that!
Rest in peace, my friend. But not so much peace that you don’t stir up things from heaven!